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In This Time Of AIDS Crisis Silence Is Suicidal
by Christine Akiteng

"Break the silence," "speak out" and “let’s talk about sex’ are the phrases that dominate international and national campaigns to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa. But one only has to sit down at any of the highly publicized HIV/AIDS conferences or live concerts and note the reaction of African leaders and representatives - that is if they have been invited or were invited and actually manage to get some donor funding to attend these events. Even at Question and Answer time, very few Africans say anything, most just sit there, collect their per diem and fly back home to lament about how “life is not fair’. Referring to the just concluded Live 8 Concert an African professor said “Will it have any impact and where are the Africans?” Another commented “How can a Live 8 Concert be for Africans when Africans can’t be allowed to speak for themselves. Let them sing their songs, we’ll die here in belly of the beast".

But how can we have our voices heard when we’re not talking. How do we tackle AIDS if we are not talking about it ourselves? I am personally more convinced than ever that unless Africans get real and start talking nothing is ever going to change; not the way we’re portrayed, not the way we’re treated and certainly not the way we are dying. Unless we Africans speak out freely and forcefully, we will remain victims of Western self-interested-leading-nowhere-policies. True, we do not have the drugs, but this HIV/AIDS epidemic cannot be controlled with drugs alone or as someone put it “Doctors pouring drugs of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, into human beings of which they know nothing”.

There are Africans who adamantly insist that asking people to talk about sex is implicitly imposing western values and practices which conflict with the way Africans identify and feel about themselves, the way they experience the world and the way their reality in constructed. “They’ve already stripped us naked of our resources, dignity and pride, and now they want our private parts too?. Next they’ll want our internal organs” said one old man. Many Africans who share this view evince only two seemingly opposite trends: a wholesale abandonment of African cultural attachments on one hand and traditional fundamentalism as a symbol of resistance to Western political and cultural imperialism. When I asked one African man what he was doing personally to fight this epidemic, his answer was “I am not going to go on the streets with placards. That is what white people do”.

I understand the attachment we Africans have for our cultural values and practices but it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. There is nothing worse than people suffering needlessly. Only by talking for ourselves will initiatives get going that fit in with the way we live our lives. Sex and sexuality are concepts which are grounded in our own bodies and our own experiences. Who is in a better position to tell us what is good for us, than ourselves? Who is in the best position to negotiate for culturally appropriate platforms for talking about sex but ourselves? It is precisely because sex is so intrinsic to who we are that it should not be left to the whim of others to tell us what to do with our sexuality. It’s only and only when we Africans not only take full responsibility for what is happening to us but assume the leadership of how this disease is being fought that we’ll see significant results. We’re the only ones who can speak for ourselves in our own right, our own voices because we’re the only ones who know the way we “do” it (behind closed doors) and the way we want to say it - our own way of explaining our existence.

We are in a burning house and yet only a few are shouting for all of us to get out. We have been squatting and rocking on our heels with grief and this has proved an exercise in futility. Let’s add our voices to those already shouting the best way they know how, white, brown or black. And what is wrong with carrying placards on the streets, anyway? Or may be we’d rather wait silently for science and technology to save us – not wanting to disturb the “great minds” while they silently work out our saving vaccine.

We must let no opportunity pass. We must speak out and speak the truth. If we can not speak up for ourselves, then we must speak up for our children – our blood and continuity. In this time of crisis silence is suicidal.

Christine Akiteng is a Cross-Cultural Consultant Specializing in African Business and Social Etiquette. Christine's website: http://www.africanetiquette.com

Article Source: AfroArticles.com

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